


In Any Other World

by danrdarrenc



Category: Days of Our Lives
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-01
Updated: 2014-09-01
Packaged: 2018-02-15 17:36:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2237664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danrdarrenc/pseuds/danrdarrenc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a belief in this world that every decision you make opens up dozens of new ones, new and unseen parallel worlds where your decision had gone differently, where you’d done something else, made a different choice. Dozens and dozens of alternate worlds, adjacent but never open; dozens of different lives this version of you will never live.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Any Other World

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Points of Tangency](https://archiveofourown.org/works/554593) by [harlequindreaming](https://archiveofourown.org/users/harlequindreaming/pseuds/harlequindreaming). 



It starts here:

On a bright sunny day in June, Will Horton, just out of graduation rehearsal, takes pictures with his girlfriend at the Brady Pub. Sonny Kiriakis, newly arrived in Salem, decides to walk through the pier on the way to see his parents. And there they are, standing still at the edge of the crossroads, ready to choose their path: all the alternate universes waiting to be formed on each of the choices that follows.

In one alternate reality, Will and Gabi remain at the Pub, talking to T and Kinsey. Gabi doesn’t get the phone call that her mother broke her leg and won’t be at graduation. They don’t go to the pier until hours later, when Will walks Gabi home. Sonny talks briefly with Abigail, visits the Kiriakis mansion, and heads back to Europe on a hiking trip two weeks later.

In another, Sonny sits on the bench on the pier until Abigail comes along. They spend ten minutes talking and are walking away, arms linked together, backs to the entrance of the pier, when Will and Gabi come around the corner. Neither recognizes it’s Abby, and so neither calls out to her to introduce them to her friend. Sonny comes out to Victor, who immediately disowns him. Sonny never returns to Salem.

In this one, though, Dario calls Gabi to say their mother won’t be at graduation. Sonny and Abigail stop to talk on the pier. Will and Gabi round the corner and Abigail introduces Will and Sonny. And as Will defends his honor, again and again against T, Sonny watches from the sidelines and feels that he came back to Salem at just the right time and made just the right decision to walk to the Kiriakis mansion via the pier.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Is that day in late June really where it begins though? Or does it begin before, when Gabi swears she’ll break out of the hospital if she has to so she won’t miss graduation? Or when Sonny, in a little hostel at the bottom of Mount Everest, decides he misses his parents and he thinks it’s time to visit Salem? Or years before that, before Will and Sonny are even born, when Sami and Lucas decide on a whim to sleep together in that office at Titan? Or when Justin and Adrienne decide to leave Salem after finding out Adrienne is pregnant, and then again years later to move to Dubai? Or when Will is 14, after shooting EJ, chose to live in Switzerland with Carrie and Austin?

A never-ending list of what-ifs and could-have-beens spirals endlessly, unwieldy and full of possibilities. But Will and Sonny find themselves here and now, drinking coffee together at the Brady Pub, and neither of them knows how every decision they make spins their reality farther and farther out of control.

A decision is made: Sonny makes a promise to himself not to fall in love with Will. 

All the different paths lie dormant and still, waiting to be taken.

* * * * * * * * * * 

Maybe: the next week, Sonny is caught in the crossfire when the bullets start flying in the war between the DiMeras and the Kiriakises. Will marries Gabi and they live in a house with a white picket fence, three kids, and a dog.

Or: Sonny pulls Will out of the closet too far and too fast. Will runs scared to Gabi’s bed and a year later starts haunting gay bars in Chicago in the dead of night. Sonny marries Brian and they move away to the South American mountains. 

On another path, Will doesn’t stand up against T for Sonny who puts up with the taunts for less than two weeks before deciding to go to school in New York. In another, they’re too late in realizing their website’s been hacked. They end up expelled from Salem U and sitting in adjoining jail cells.

In this reality, though, Sonny fails at keeping the promise to himself. He falls fast and hard for Will who’s stuck in the closet but doesn’t realize it yet.

* * * * * * * * * * *

The beer at the party in the square is enticing. A nice way to dull the pain of his mother’s sins. Sonny stares at him, concerned. He takes a bottle from one of Sonny’s friends anyway. 

Neil asks him to play beer pong. He wavers in his decision for a second, two. He makes his choice: It’s only a game.

His mind swirls, fuzzy from the alcohol, as he stands under the arch on the edge of Horton Town Square. 

Another fork in the road: He stumbles home. He’s none the wiser. Or: He stays. He drinks more and Sonny frowns.

Here, now: Neil walks over to see if he’s okay. He babbles about just needing some air and some water. In a split second alcohol-induced decision, Will smashes their lips together.

As he pushes Neil away a minute later, he wonders if he chose the right path.

* * * * * * * * * * *

It continues after that, day after day, Will and Sonny each making seemingly tiny, insignificant decisions.

Sonny: whether or not to call Will to see how he’s handling everything. 

Will: whether or not to continue living in a feigned innocence.

Somewhere, Sonny stops calling. Somewhere else, Will comes knocking at his door, begging for him to show him what it means to be gay.

In reality, Sonny doesn’t call too often to seem like he’s pressuring Will but often enough so Will knows he’s there to listen, to help. Will talks to Marlena, sorts things out in his head, comes to terms with being gay.

In reality, Will comes to the coffee shop late one night, tells Sonny’s he’s gay. Sonny already knows, of course, and tells him as much. He offers his support, lets Will know he’s there if he has any questions. They sit on the couch, have a long conversation about their futures, about everything they both fear they’re giving up by being gay. 

In reality, they reach another precipice, another fork in the road where they must decide which path to take. Will says he should go home, let Sonny finish cleaning up. They hug. They cling to each other tightly, and pull away, faces only inches from the other, and it’s the moment. The moment when they both decide, separately and together, which road they are going to travel. They could kiss for the first time, right here, right now. Sonny thinks about it, wonders if it’s still too new for Will, if it will push him back in the closet. Will thinks about it, too, wonders if Sonny’s thinking about it, fears rejection so soon after being out.

They choose their path: they don’t kiss. 

Will walks away and stands in the doorway for minutes, staring at Sonny. Sonny doesn’t see.

* * * * * * * * * * *

He walks back to Sonny’s apartment, Gabi’s words (I’m pregnant. You’re the father.) ringing in his head. As he stands outside the door, he stands at another crossroad, another decision that will forever alter the life he leads.

He could: tell Sonny Gabi’s pregnant with his child and they could deal with it together. Or he could: tell Sonny and Sonny leaves, not ready to be tied down. 

What he does is: lie. He says nothing’s wrong. Gabi was just worried about Caroline. He borrows money from Sonny for the almost-abortion and goes along with the plan to say Nick’s the father. He sleeps in Sonny’s bed every night, hoping to stave off the nightmares. He can’t.

At the end of this path he has chosen, he finds another crossroad. Chad stands up at Gabi and Nick’s wedding, declaring Nick is not the baby’s father. He watches as Rafe attacks Chad, as Gabi clings to Nick; all the alternate paths collide, converge, overlap in his head. He closes his eyes and breathes as he leaps head-first into the new reality he makes.

Nick’s not the father. I am.

His reality shatters as Sonny runs out of the church.

* * * * * * * * * * * 

Sonny’s walk down the path Will has taken them has many stops at many branches.

On one path: He packs up and is gone from Salem in an hour. Or: he fucks Brian out of spite, hurts Will the way Will’s hurt him. Maybe: he leaves Salem temporarily to clear his head and his heart and comes back but moves on from Will.

On the road he chooses, he mopes around Salem for a month, still in love with Will, trying to forget the betrayal he feels. He dates Brian briefly but it’s not the same. A week before Valentine’s Day, Will shuffles into the coffee shop and hands him back the key to the apartment. It’s another branch and Sonny chooses to let Will walk away. 

That path doesn’t go very far, though, lasts only about a week, until the moment when he hears Gabi’s gone into early labor and he decides in a second that he will go with Kate and Lucas to the hospital. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * 

Sonny doesn’t necessarily believe in alternate universes or that every decision we make unalterably and significantly changes our lot in life. But as he stands at the altar, his hands in Will’s, listening to Will recite his wedding vows, he knows deep in his soul, that that day he decided to go to the hospital was the day he set himself - and Will - on the right path.

He doesn’t know what would have happened between them if he’d stayed at the coffee shop, or he hadn’t heard the phone call, or if hadn’t asked Will to get coffee with him the next morning. But he can feel it deep in his bones, that every decision he’s made since seeing Will, red and puffy-eyed at the hospital last Valentine’s Day, has created a path that forever inextricably intertwined his and Will’s journeys in life.

The other worlds, other paths, other roads, all the maybes, all the what-ifs, all the could-have-beens, remain hidden, untraveled, unexplored.


End file.
